India And God
India is primarily a Hindu country, even though it can claim to be the biggest Muslim country, especially after a South Asian economic union, and it is the land of the Buddha’s enlightenment, as well his death. It is the land of St. Thomas, one of the 12 apostles of Christ, whose skull has been preserved to this day.
If there is but one God, as both the organized religions of Hinduism and Christianity claim, whose one God is it? You can not talk of one God, and then ask whose God.
First, let’s separate the wheat from the chaff. Jesus was not the white guy he gets portrayed to be, he was an Arab. But it is okay to portray Jesus as a white guy, or a black guy for that matter, for Jesus was not human. Jesus is not some white guy who is being shoved down the Indian throat. If you don’t believe in God, then Jesus is not relevant to you, but if you do then Jesus is relevant to you.
Cultural heritage is different from religion, which is different yet from God. I think of the religions as different ways to the same God. But what if something or some practice or some social structure that gets called religion actually is standing between you and God? Is that still religion?
Jesus was a revolutionary who railed against the priestly class. It can be argued it is that same priestly class that stands between man and God across the Indian subcontinent. Because God is all powerful, it is very very tempting to become a priest and then claim enormous powers. Many many priests over the centuries have fallen for it. But no place has it become as rigid and as institutionalized and as obnoxious as in the Hindu caste system. It is not possible to separate the Hindu religion from the Hindu caste system. For all practical purposes they are one and the same. The most celebrated Indian Dalit, Ambedkar, father of India’s constitution, finally gave up and became a Buddhist.
But there’s much to treasure in the Hindu heritage, the Hindu mythologies. There’s the philosophy of Geeta that teaches you how to live an active life without getting attached to anything material, there’s yoga, there are ancient texts like the Upanishad that some have compared to quantum physics, there are the grand stories of the Ramayana and Mahabharata, which encapsulate what Hinduism means to most people who call themselves Hindu today. Hindu cultural heritages should be preserved and treasured by all humanity, just like Newton’s law of gravity is recommended also for India, and the Greek mythologies do not belong only to the Greeks. The best of Bollywood movies should be released in mainstream American theaters with English subtitles. Yoga should be adopted in every town on earth.
But none of these are really to do with God, Heaven and Everlasting Life. Unless you come to realize you are a unique soul, unique in the history and future of the universe, and that you need to have a personal relationship with God, and that you need to conquer death, that you can have Everlasting Life, unless you come face to face with your uniqueness and your permanence, it is not even possible to form the individual, the individual of the one person, one vote, one voice democracy.
The world is poor because India is poor. India is the primary drag on the world economy. And India is poor because there is a priestly class that stands like a firewall between God and humanity preventing the healthy formation of the individual without which a modern democracy, a modern economy can not imagined. Jesus railed against the priestly class. Jesus needs to rail against the priestly class all over again.
Jesus had no race, Jesus had no cultural background, not the Jesus who is the Son of God, a member of the Holy Trinity. I’d like Shahrukh Khan to play Jesus in a Hindi movie about Jesus’ life. Perhaps Mel Gibson will attempt a Hindi remake. A Hindi movie with English subtitles for a global audience.
Humanity has been trying to figure out God since the dawn of time, and that quest still continues. So yes, there is a God, there is a Heaven, also in the Hindu belief system.
And I have argued, the second coming of Christ for Christians, and the first coming of The Messiah for the Jews, is actually the coming of The Holy Spirit, who will descend like a spiritual cloud to engulf all earth, and that challenges the “Christian” idea that only human beings have souls. The Holy Spirit will not only permeate all human beings, but also all living creatures, and all inanimate objects as well, which jives with the Hindu worldview that all creatures have souls, not just human beings, and The Holy Spirit is more in tune with female power in the Hindu religion. And so Hindus should stop acting defensive.
There is the Hindu trinity — Bramha, Vishnu, Maheshwar — but then there is one God above that trinity, and that God has a name, Parameshwar, but no form. The Buddha talks of Enlightenment but does not rule out God. God is beyond Enlightenment. Islam talks of one God, a formless God. There is one God in Christianity, but that one God is a trinity, but this is not like the Hindu trinity.
This is like atomic and subatomic physics. There is one atom, indivisible. But that atom has constituent parts. Even those subatomic particles break into quarks.
Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism do not clash at all. Above the Hindu trinity is one God, but that one God is also a trinity, although a trinity of a different kind, as Christianity tells us. But the Buddhists are not opposed to that one God, and Muslims talk about that same one God.
But human rights are not religion, they are political rights, they are of this earth. Freedom of religion is pretty fundamental. India is not a democracy if people are not free to practice the faith of their choice. Any person has the option to choose any faith. That is a right enshrined in the constitution.
But an Indian might do yoga, read the stories in the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, get inspired by Geeta for day to day decisions, and still accept Jesus Christ as his or her personal savior. I can’t think of a better way to break the backbone of the Hindu caste system, the backbone of the hereditary priestly class that holds India down, for no one may stand between man and God. That relationship needs to be direct. Middle men need not apply.
You could think of Jesus as technology, almost. Physics deals with the physical universe. Religion deals with the spiritual. It is about the soul. Religion’s goal is to recognize you have a soul, and that it needs to go to Heaven, and if Jesus is the best technology available to do that, why will you insist on using the steam engine? Why not use the jet engine? But the second coming of Jesus is here already, and it incorporates some elements that only Hinduism has had. So where is the face loss? In getting conquered you conquer.
Similarly, a Christian can be a Buddhist at the same time. Because, think about it, the two religions are apples and oranges. Buddhism does not deal with Heaven, Christianity does not deal with Enlightenment. It is like one is a shirt, the other is a pant. You can put both on, legitimately. It is like, you can play soccer with your body, but with the same body you can also do yoga. Soccer and yoga exercise two different aspects of you. You don’t have to pick one over the other.
And the hell with the caste system. It is not even religion. It is a colonization of the soul. Liberation is the only sensible option. Liberation is one small decision away for every Dalit. Accept Jesus as your personal savior, and you are liberated. Get baptized. Secure your place in Heaven. That makes it a double whammy: liberation on earth, and a reservation in Heaven.
